ABIGAIL CIRELLI | staff writer
Last Tuesday, the Matheteis forum reflected on the question, “Is peace possible?” A handout summarized the current conflicts in Darfur, Congo, Iraq and Gaza, only a few examples of the many situations, pas and present, that make peace seem impossible.
Panelist Dr. Werthmuller, who has a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern history, explained that many Christians feel they have no other option but to believe in justified war. One or two of the questions at the forum alluded to the perspective that when confronted with “evil,” armed opposition is the only viable response.
In his book, The Powers That Be, Walter Wink, professor of biblical interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary, points out the fallacy of the belief that to be against evil is inherently to be on the side of good. “Good guys” fighting uncompromisingly against “bad guys” may be a plot that resolves justly in the movies, but world history has a different narrative.
Throughout time, leaders have dug their heels in, rather than pursue a middle ground. Panelist Dr. Stassen, ethics professor and author at Fuller Seminary, pointed out how incidences of international terror skyrocketed and steadily increased after the U.S. declared war in Iraq. Werthmuller pointed out that Bush refused to speak on popular Arabic news station Al Jazeera because of ideological opposition, opting to speak on a news station aligned with American ideals. His voice went unheard by the Arab world.
Panelist John Ole Kisimir, a long–time journalist in conflict zones, said “Wars don’t end until people talk.” It’s sad that so many have the opposite understanding.
Disbelief in the efficiency and perhaps morality of “negotiating with terrorists” surfaced at the forum, a misunderstanding dispelled by the panelists with examples from Palestine, Libya and Angola.
If peace can be increased by peaceful means, why do we see violence as the assumed means of resolution? Wink writes that we trust in violence because we are afraid.
Rather than facing those we would oppose with understanding, we refuse to know them. Polarized by patriotism, pain, color, pride, or religion, we fear what we do not know.
In that fear, we can justify violence against a faceless “evil.” If there are forces of “evil” in this world, they are not manifest in human beings. Human beings may have evil intentions, perform evil acts, champion evil causes, but they themselves remain people—people with pasts, families, hopes, and pain. Connecting with our enemies’ humanity is one of the most powerful weapons of nonviolence.
Fearful for our own needs and rights, “the other” becomes obscured and insignificant. The humanity of both sides is lost.
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other – that man, that woman, that child is my brother or my sister,” Mother Teresa said. “If everyone could see the image of God in his neighbor, do you think we would still need tanks and generals?”
As for the “forces of evil,” war doesn’t kill “forces,” it kills people. Cesar Chavez believed violence isn’t justified because history shows that the poor, the workers, the people of the land are the ones who suffer from it.
Yet peace seems ellusive, and oppressive actions seem to warrant a response. Responding with violence only perpetuates the cycle of oppression. Fighting terror with terror is no way to keep children safer at night. We must keep seeking an alternative.
At the forum, just war theory was contrasted with the peacemaking theories of panelist Dr. Stassen, who outlines its ten elements in his book Just Peacemaking. When questioned on the definition of peace, he responded, “I don’t give a damn,” while continuing on to explain how he is concerned with actively pursuing peace and justice initiatives that are effective, not idealistic.
However, all the panelists agreed that whether or not world peace is possible doesn’t matter.
Humanity’s entitlement to dignity compels us to lay down our ethnocentrism, racism, and fear and see the needs and fears of “the other.” It requires us to see “the others” as brothers and sisters upon whom our own humanity rests.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu established the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in response to the struggle for freedom from apartheid in South Africa.
It was the kind of reconciliation panelist John Ole Kisimir said works best; the kind where one looks another in the eyes and says “I killed your brother, and I’m sorry.”
Tutu believed in ubuntu, the concept that people are people through other people. It means looking at people and saying, “my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”
But that shared humanity cannot be experienced when nations and people are more concerned with their own interests than with the suffering of others.
If this is true, perhaps we will never be fully human and we will never fully find peace. But that is the paradox of the living.
We must pursue an end we may never achieve, or we will be destroyed by the means used to achieve an “attainable” end.
And in that paradox, there is hope. Werthmuller spoke strongly of people’s ability to change, citing Fatah, a group formerly seen as “terrorists,” and now the Palestine’s greatest champions of dialogue with Israel.
His words resonated with me deeply. If we do not pursue peace, we are seeking a power that denies the dignity of those we oppose, decimates the lives of innocent people, and robs us of our own humanity. It is a power that will be taken away by the next guy with a bigger gun.
Yet if we practice peace, we have the opportunity to actually live, the potential to lessen fear, and the possibility to experience a better world, even if only for one moment.
